


All The Lights Went Out

by fifteenstitches



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 03:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fifteenstitches/pseuds/fifteenstitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Topher hasn't always been afraid of the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Lights Went Out

Christopher likes the dark, because it lets him think clearly.

By daylight, Christopher's world is a confusing, busy, noisy place, and his train of thought is constantly side-tracked. The world is so full of stuff, it's impossible to work anything out. At home he wakes every morning to a note in the kitchen; 'Can you make your lunch - juice in the fridge, see you later.' He'll be in bed by the time they get back - otherwise they'll talk at him for the sake of talking, stupid things, carelessly inquiring about his day before sending him upstairs to do his homework. At school, Christopher ignores the pointlessly easy work in front of him and stares out of the window at the rain hitting the tarmac, the sound of the raindrops providing a beat to the whirring of his light-speed thoughts. It never works though - the bright fluorescent lights, and the babbling of his idiot classmates always distract him before he can finish an idea.

Christopher has heard that other children don't like the dark. He asks a girl at school about this, and she looks at him strangely before explaining that the dark made the monsters come out. Christopher laughs - he knows for a fact that monsters don't exist. He concludes that this irrational fear must stem from insecurity, or from the stupid stories they're told by grown-ups. A random thought catches his attention as it whizzes past, and makes him wonder if a fear of the dark could be cured somehow, if some process could be invented to make someone forget about things that scared them. Christopher thinks that such an invention would be very useful.

Night time feels like a friend calling to him, and when he finally draws his curtains and lies back on his bed, Christopher is finally able to think clearly. The darkness around him sweeps away any and all mortal distractions, covering the world in a blissful blanket of stillness, allowing Christopher to plunge into the enticing depths of his mind and fully explore the treasures he knows he will find there. His ideas paint glowing pictures on the dark canvas around him, shining like splashes of neon. Christopher lets them swirl reassuringly around him. Only in the dark is this possible, the power of thought, this knowledge of who he is, of what he could one day be capable of.

*

Topher hates the dark, because it lets him think clearly.

When the lights go out, he feels the monsters start to creep up behind him, licking their lips as they search for a way in. Topher's put as many firewalls up in his mind as he has on his computer system, but he knows it's possible he's given Doubt more hacker skills than was strictly necessary.

It hardly ever happens - he makes sure of that - but every so often, the House mainframe goes down for maintenance and the entire House is plunged into darkness. Usually it only lasts a few minutes, but for Topher that's a few minutes too many. In the dark he has nothing to focus on, nothing bright or trivial or real to distract him from thoughts he would rather leave buried. In the dark he's defenceless, with nothing but the frantic rambling of a panicked, meaningless string of thoughts to protect him from his fear; the fear that maybe monsters do exist after all.

Usually it's not a problem, and in the bright lights of normalcy he doesn't even notice these treacherous thoughts. He has enough to think about - creating believable personalities, updating the imprint process, and then the actual process itself, changing, creating lives with the push of a button. He never tires of the buzz he gets whenever an Active sits up, a new person, all their memories, feelings and inner thoughts completely fabricated by him, completely under his control.

There was one exception, of course. Topher can't forget the feeling of terror, that feeling of utter lack of control. Only once has it happened, and ever since, the dark has held a new dread. He's powerless in the dark - when he can't see, he's helpless, vulnerable. Completely at the mercy of anything and everything that could be hiding in the shadows.

And worse than the impossible memory of Alpha, worse than the fear of monsters coming to find him, are the monsters inside his own head. When there's nothing to distract him, and no shiny toys to play with, Topher's mind starts to hum into action with almost no interaction from Topher himself. He puts on a front a lot of the time - it comes naturally - he believes it himself. He's the funny guy, the smartest person in the room. He's annoying yet lovable, a mad scientist hidden beneath a scruffy shirt or sweater. Occasionally he's an evil genius. But when the lights go out, Topher can't deny that he's not as amoral as he would have people believe. He tries to drown it out with constant babble about finding ways to install another lighting system that didn't run off the mainframe, or reminding Ivy to get more juice boxes, or ouch, who put that wall there? But truthfully it doesn't work, and the voice of doubt always manages to slip through his defences and surprise him just when he least expects it.

'We give people what they need.' Dewitt was always saying it, but somewhere buried deep at the back of Topher's brain is the thought that what he needs is some form of proof. Alpha has made him realise that the Dollhouse is not as all-powerful as it thinks. Worse, perhaps - it has too much power, and not enough restraint.

What people could do with their technology - what Topher himself could do, and has done - makes him glad he's the one controlling the chair. In the light, Topher grins as another Active returns from an engagement, another mind is wiped and restored to its perfect blank state. In the dark, Topher can only hope he can be trusted.

*

There's no more light, and though he surrounds himself with candles and glow-sticks, somehow nothing makes any difference. He's crouched in his bed, two feet below floor-level with just enough room to lie in. He chose it because of the light. Blue light pulsing gently from the sides. If he stays here he'll be safe from the dark. And candles don't run off electricity, so even if the power goes down he'll still have those tiny little flames to protect him. Fire. Like a firewall. Against the virus, the one he created.

Even now he has to lie to himself, has to try to believe that the dark isn't all around him. Worse. He is the dark, the dark is him, and it's always been that way but he can never admit that, because then the world would end all over again.

He saw a world once and it was light. Mostly he lived underground, but he caught glimpses of it through the window of Dewitt's office sometimes, and he saw it on the rare occasions he ventured out of the Dollhouse. When he went to Tucson that time, then he saw it, and caught a little bit of light to take back with him. She was so bright, and although those days were dark ones he could believe that everything was going to be alright; now that she was here. It was too contagious. Her light spread, touched him and caught, making him burn. He'd never been the light before.

Extinguished extinguished extinguished. All the lights went out. He was the dark. He managed to touch the entire world. And then, everyone caught it and became part of it, his dark. His world.

What comes after the dark? Science doesn't know. He doesn't think there could be anything else.

He can't see or smell or feel or taste. He can hear the screaming in the silence. It's real. The sound is real; his head can hear it even if his ears can't. He can think. No distractions. Nothing left. Melting in pitch. It's so dark in his heart even the monsters are afraid of him.

This is his loop.

He's not sure it will ever end. Logically he knows he'll be extinguished one day. (Do days still exist?) But then, he is the dark. And even when Topher is gone, the dark will live forever. Like a trademark, or like graffiti, scrawled _Topher was here _in thick black letters.__

No-one's left to read it. And it's too dark to see, anyway.

There's no difference when he opens his eyes.


End file.
